A customer in California couldn't use his car days after taking delivery.

If you ask industry experts, analysts, and speculators, Tesla is dying a slow death – but for one customer in California it already is. OK, his Tesla already is. Reddit user Aargau bought his new Tesla Model 3 just before Christmas – Christmas Eve in fact – but as things would turn out, he probably wished he got socks instead.

At first the customer thought his new EV was 'a fantastic car', until last week when he went to start it up and the Model 3 just conked out entirely.

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'[I] went to drive it this morning and nothing would wake it up,' he posted. 'Tesla Service couldn't ping it or reboot remotely either.' The poster revealed that the car's battery – which was inspected and deemed perfectly healthy – was at 86 percent charge at the time of its demise, and that plugging the car into a charging port didn't wake it up either. Not even going through the car's drawn-out reboot procedure could bring it back to life.

Luckily for Aargau, he lives just 12 miles from Tesla's factory in Fremont, so the company towed the car back to its HQ to give it the once over. The thread detailing the unfortunate event, which can be viewed here, led to some witty responses.

'Take out the battery and out it back in. [It] Works on my phone,' said one. 'Try blowing into it. [It] Worked on the N64,' added another. We'd like to add rubbing it on his jumper to the list of suggestions, it just might work.

This incident is the latest in a long line of gaffes relating to the Tesla Model 3 – Tesla's first so-called 'entry-level' offering. Production deadlines have repeatedly been pushed back, some cars have been delivered without seats or infotainment screens, many of those that have been delivered intact have ended up being sent back, and more recently owners have reported that the glass roofs on their cars are beginning to crack.

'Probably a good decision to sell to California first,' said the unlucky owner in this story. It's probably a good idea to make sure the car works before offering it to paying customers, no matter where you're selling it.